1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a rotatable equipment support device for moving a vehicle or other equipment in a rotary motion and a method of manufacturing such a device.
2. Descripton of Related Art
Rotatable equipment supports are known in the art. This equipment may be used as a turnaround to revise the direction of a vehicle or other equipment, or for a rotating display of a vehicle or other equipment.
A number of designs of automobile turntables were proposed late in the 19th century or in the early part of the last century at the end of the era of the horse-drawn car and at the dawn of the automobile industry. Examples of these early manually-operated designs are U.S. Pat. No. 244,703 (White) U.S. Pat. No. 813,462 (Stickney), U.S. Pat. No. 819,014 (Hillenbrand), U.S. Pat. No. 878,135 (Hastings), U.S. Pat. No. 1,572,728 (Brobst), U.S. Pat. No. 1,596,156 (Craig), U.S. Pat. No. 1,753,550 (Cook), U.S. Pat. No. 1,797,830 (Koehler), U.S. Pat. No. 1,843,047 (Smith), and U.S. Pat. No. 2,080,506 (Ash). A characteristic of these is a limited range of equipment they would accommodate, and the need for considerable skill in installing equipment due to the use of narrow tracks to support the equipment. In the examples not employing narrow tracks, a design requires excavation and a foundation to install the device.
A more modern version of the manual turntable is proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,467,746 (Paskiewicz). This recognizes a manual turntable is suitable only for smaller equipment, such as motorcycles or snowmobiles.
Motorized turntables, either having their own motor or using power from the equipment supported, or using the weight of the supported equipment, were proposed as early as the 1920's through the end of the last century, examples using narrow tracks to support the equipment are U.S. Pat. No. 1,378,8898 (Potts), U.S. Pat. No. 1,772,075 (Exon), U.S. Pat. No. 2,135,924 (Toews), U.S. Pat. No. 2,244,598 (Ash), U.S. Pat. No. 2,952,221 (Hobel), U.S. Pat. No. 3,566,798 (Peitzman), U.S. Pat. No. 4,172,422 (McBride), U.S. Pat. No. 4,562,774 (Dehring), U.S. Pat. No. 4,608,929 (Park), U.S. Pat. No. 4,841,870 (Coles), U.S. Pat. No. 5,086,704 (Mueller), and U.S. Pat. No. 5,755,160 (Bluforcraving).
Motorized turntables employing a circular platform to support the equipment are described in U.S. Pat. No. 2,025,320 (Waalkes) U.S. Pat. No. 2,566,634 (Ready), U.S. Pat. No. 3,566,799 (Stern), U.S. Pat. No. 4,562,774 (Dehring), U.S. Pat. No. 4,753,173 (James), and U.S. Pat. No. 4,777,884 (Seay, Jr.). Such turntables use excessive material due to the wasted space if the footprint of the equipment supported is rectangular and the turntable is round.
Turntables employing rectangular platforms and using power from the equipment supported, or using the weight of the supported equipment to rotate the turntable are described in U.S. Pat. No. 1,993,648 (Cook) and U.S. Pat. No. 4,562,774 (Dehring). These require a substantial and unique foundation to be installed prior to installing the turntable.